Anderson, Douglas Richard
Army Captain

Douglas Richard Anderson from Rockford, Illinois, Winnebago county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Saturday, September 1, 1951
Death details: On July 11, 1950, the U.S. Army’s 21st Infantry Regiment, which had arrived in Korea six days earlier, was placed in defensive positions near the town of Chochiwon, South Korea. The regiment was not at full strength and lacked artillery and anti-tank weapons. That day, they were attacked by North Korean forces and were forced to withdraw to avoid being surrounded, as well as to buy time until they could be reinforced and resupplied. Captain Douglas Richard Anderson, who joined the U.S. Army from Illinois, served with the Medical Company, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces on July 12, 1950, near Chochiwon and marched north to the Apex camps on the Yalu River in North Korea. He reached the third Apex camp, an old Japanese police compound between the villages of An-dong and Kaeyambol, in mid-1951, and died there of malnutrition and dysentery on an unspecified date in September. His companions buried him a short distance away from the camp; however, his remains were not identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the war. Today, Captain Anderson is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency